Fundamental needs means all those needs that are fundamental to a person's life, that enable the individual to lead a healthy existence and that are the basis of human self-realisation.

There are still billions of people who do not have access to basic services, grouped in this category: to have access to adequate food and drinking water, to basic health facilities, to be able to send their children to school, to have housing and to live in safety, supporting their families with employment.

In Europe, we have long implemented social policies to achieve these objectives. Yet 2.6 million households (10% of Italian households) live below the poverty line and are at risk of marginalisation. Yet we observe that this issue is significantly less addressed by mutual funds than other social issues.

In order to positively impact on basic needs, the funds can act both in Europe and in developing countries where demographic trends and economic growth lead to a part of the poor population having opportunities to get out of their situation of social distress.

Some investment themes are related to the production and distribution of quality food at affordable prices, and the creation of social housing, as well as services dedicated to the safety of people.

The funds can also invest in different types of projects: focusing on a concrete and uniform distribution of education that is fair and inclusive in order to facilitate access to the labour market, including in mixed private/public forms;

Very often in Emerging Countries, there is a strong focus on housing and sanitation issues , both through infrastructure (water, electricity) and by facilitating local trade sometimes using micro-credit.

Sustainable investors use different management strategies:
The Exclusion Approach: this refers in particular to labour exploitation, and non-respect of children's rights (ILO and Global Compact labour standards).
The Thematic Approach: Many of the funds that focus on the issue of basic needs funds invest exclusively in issues related to food, water, security, social housing , and microcredit .

Relatively few funds specifically address the area of basic needs and we are actively looking for good examples to include.

Currently, we have identified 55 criteria to assess the importance of the basic needs theme in mutual funds. We note, at the level of ESG Impact a strong prevalence of thematic funds that invest in the topic, as the social share devoted to this topic is often reduced in generalist funds. In addition, funds that are interested in basic needs are often those that carry out close Screening on human and labor rights violations.

Adverse indicators regarding the issue of basic needs are difficult to conceive of, because many times these are actions of public authorities.

Thus, there are no mandatory indicators for sustainable mutual funds. However, criteria related to children's rights and forced labor have been brought to the attention of funds, which are the only indicators related to this issue:

• Operations and suppliers at significant risk of using child labor:
  The Share of Investments in Society investees exposed to operations and suppliers that have a significant risk of incidents of minors being exposed to hazardous labor in terms of geographic area or type of operation.

• Operations and suppliers at significant risk of using forced or compulsory labor:
  The Share of Investments in Society investees exposed to operations and suppliers at significant risk of incidents of forced or compulsory labor.